


Nuclear

by Hale13



Series: Whump Bingo 2020 [17]
Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Michelle Jones Is a Good Bro, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Has Anxiety, Peter Parker Has Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Needs a Break, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Mess, Whump, Whump Bingo, Whumptober, agnst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hale13/pseuds/Hale13
Summary: Peter has had panic attacks since he was a freshly orphaned kid sleeping in May and Ben’s guest room.  He knows he has triggers and he always does his level best to avoid them.The list has grown since he became Spider-Man and he’s been having a hard time keeping track of them.(For Bingo space G2 – Another character spots their hands shaking so they hide them.)
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Series: Whump Bingo 2020 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943986
Comments: 2
Kudos: 88





	Nuclear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SeizeTheBaguette_1899](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeizeTheBaguette_1899/gifts).



> TW for panic attacks (not an in depth description), anxiety and for off-screen mentions of Skip Westcott.
> 
> Don’t be like Peter - get help if you need it and don’t hide any mental health concerns. You deserve to feel good.
> 
> Thanks for the prompt idea SeizeTheBaguette_1899! I hope you like it!

Peter was first diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when he was four. His mother had noticed that he seemed extraordinarily shy and would always get upset when they went out to dinner or to the park or if she left him at daycare. At his yearly visit with his pediatrician she had mentioned all of these things and the young doctor had said that Peter could possibly have an anxiety disorder or some degree of Aspergers or Autism. She had referred them to a child therapist who had been able to diagnose Peter with social anxiety along with a generalized anxiety disorder and have given them plenty of tips on how to help him and defuse possible situations before they could even start.

Of course when his parents died that all went out the window. Peter’s anxiety got exponentially worse and he had his first panic attack standing at their graves after the funeral. May, who had worked in the pediatric ward before the emergency department, had done her best to help calm Peter down but was unable to before he passed out. His aunt and uncle weren’t able to afford counseling the way his parents did but were able to get referrals to helpful children’s books from one of May’s colleagues, they helped some but not enough.

Later they had to afford counseling but for a different reason that expanded Peter’s trigger list and stole away his innocence.

By the time he was starting middle school, Peter had learned to pass off his panic attacks as asthma attacks (still plenty embarrassing to have in front of his class but at least they didn’t make fun of him as much) and found that taking puffs from his inhaler did help. His teachers were plenty fooled by this and always sent him to the nurse to ‘recover’. The only one who ever figured out about the panic attacks was Ned who knew Peter well enough to have seen multiple asthma attacks before but, like a true bro, he never spilled the beans or even asked why Peter had panic attacks. Instead, he did a ton of research and helped calm Peter down so he didn’t need to use his rescue inhaler as often.

(The summer before high school Peter had a panic attack bad enough to make him pass out again while hanging out with Ned. Ned had just shoved a vintage comic under Peter’s nose, one that he, unfortunately, recognized. When he popped back up about 2 minutes later to Ned crying and freaking out he had told Ned his triggers. And, eventually, why they were triggers. Ned had cried harder and hugged Peter and Peter had just completely come unglued. He had never told anyone of his own volition before.)

After the spider bite and, subsequently becoming Spider-Man, things changed. Some of Peter’s old triggers faded to be replaced with shiny new ones like planes and flying in general. Falls from heights unimaginable. Suffocating. Drowning and swimming and water. Sitting in the back seats of cars with strangers. Tight spaces.

Empty warehouses.

When he was Spider-Man he was able to compartmentalize (definitely not healthy) so he wasn’t as effected by his triggers. But Peter Parker? Peter Parker wasn’t a hero, he was just a nerdy high school student with poorly managed and ignored mental health issues and a thinning support system. Peter Parker couldn’t compartmentalize the same way that Spider-Man could. Peter Parker still had panic attacks for all the Spider-Man trauma.

When Peter felt episodes coming on at school he always asked for a pass to leave class and would hide in the one men’s room that had non-working toilets and broken smoke detector that the seniors on the basketball team would use to smoke between classes. He would bolt the door and find a corner to sink into and dissociate out until he could breathe again. For particularly bad ones he would always swing by the nurses office claiming to have had an asthma attack to get out of the rest of class. With the paleness of his face, breathlessness and shaking fingers he was never questioned.

Sometimes, if he was feeling too claustrophobic, Ned would recognize the build up and would pull him outside or into an empty classroom until the halls had cleared enough for Peter’s Spidey sense to stop screaming at him. Peter might only have one friend (and MJ who he supposed was his friend now so two friends, yay!), but he was lucky to have a best friend like Ned.

But, inevitably, Ned couldn’t always be there.

It started like this:

Peter’s AP World History class had just started studying America’s involvement in World War 2 and Mr. Harrington was out sick with the flu, leaving the class with a substitute teacher. As every kid knows, subs mean easy days so, when Ms. Morris turned off the lights and turned on the projector to an old documentary about the development of nuclear weapons, a ripple of excitement went through the class. Mr. Harrington was a notoriously easy teacher and would likely never quiz them on anything from the documentary.

Therefore half the students in class immediately put their heads down on their desks to nap while most of the others pulled out school work or, in MJ’s case, a book. Peter pulled out his lab notebook and started to work on a greener version of his web fluid – he wanted to find a way to cut out dangerous chemicals like toluene and was super close.

About forty-five minutes into the class Peter started to get bored and alternated between watching the documentary blankly and doodling spiders in the margins of his notebook, maybe he should design a new logo for the suit? The narrator, who had been droning on monotonously for the length of the film, suddenly gave a disclaimer for the footage following, apparently taken from cameras around Nagasaki as the atomic bomb hit.

Woefully underprepared and not expecting it, Peter was flung headfirst into a flashback at the sight of a warehouse collapsing in on itself and the sounds of anguished screams cutting out abruptly as the camera was demolished by the shock wave. Peter attempted to take a deep breath and pull himself out of it, dropping the pen in his hand to the desk and absently watching as it rolled off the edge onto the floor.

“Peter?” A quiet voice murmured from next to him and Peter glanced over to see MJ studying him, eyebrows pinched together and eyes focused on his shaking hands. Peter quickly shoved them into his lap and started one of the breathing exercises Tony had taught him a few weeks ago. In four, hold seven, out eight. He lost track of things for a second before “C’mon loser – you’re going to the nurse for your asthma attack.” MJ dumped his things into his bag unceremoniously and all but dragged him out the door and down the hall to the women’s room, shoving him in and closing the door.

“I-thought-,” Peter tried to articulate through his gasps, leaning against the wall for support before just giving up and sinking to the ground. “You-said… nurse.”

MJ rolled her eyes and sat on the grungy floor cross legged in front of Peter, close enough for his legs to get tangled with hers, before pulling both of his hands from clutching the front of his shirt to rest on her shoulders and then taking an exaggerated breath for Peter to imitate. “I know a panic attack when I see one,” she told him bluntly, continuing to move her shoulder with him breathing for him to copy. “The nurse really can’t help you here and Ned’s out today so…” she trailed off and went silent as he started to take slower, hitching inhales.

It took almost ten minutes but, finally, Peter was able to slump back against the wall and close his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “How did you know?” He asked hoarsely, accepting the water bottle MJ shoved in his hands and taking a small sip.

“I’m really observant,” she answered stoically, moving over to sit next to him, a line of heat from his shoulders to his knees. He quirked an eyebrow at her in response and she let out a deep sigh, relaxing a little. “My cousin used to have them all the time before she moved away. We used to hang out all the time and this helped her.”

“It helped me too,” Peter said softly, leaning a little firmer into MJ’s side. This was the closest she had ever allowed him to be to her and it made his cheeks and ears flush a little. “Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” MJ said seriously, “any decent person would have done the same thing.”

“That doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve gratitude,” Peter pointed out, taking another swig from the olive toned reusable bottle in his hand to wet his dry throat and then offering it back to MJ. She took it with a small uptick of her lips.

“Pete, you do enough for randos on the street that you deserve at least this.”

Peter felt cold and hot all at once. Did MJ know? Did he even care if she knew? “What do you mean?” He asked in a careful voice.

“I heard Ned say that you volunteered a lot at F.E.A.S.T. the other week,” MJ said with another mysterious smile, clearly teasing at this point.

“Oh. Uh, yeah. May and I try to help out when we can.” MJ snickered a little under her breath and they sat in companionable silence while Peter came down, hands still tremor-ing a little but he felt no need to hide them from his friend. After another couple moments, MJ unfolded her long legs to stand, offering him a hand up.

“I suppose we should actually go to the nurse to get passes for class,” she told him, passing over his backpack and shouldering her own.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Peter replied, shifting from one foot to the other in indecision. “MJ, wait,” he called out as she approached the door to unlock it. “Thanks. I mean it.”

MJ studied his face, fingers still poised over the lock, before giving him a rare smile.

“Anytime Pete.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ned Leeds would die for Peter Parker and you cannot change my mind. Their friendship is probably one of the things that makes this iteration of Spider-Man so endearing. Ned was supposed to take the place of MJ in this fic but, opps, she just kinda shoe-horned her way in.
> 
> Oh well. You can consider this pre Peter/MJ if you want or not if that’s what you prefer.
> 
> Thirteen more prompts to go! I’ve gotten a fair few suggestions but if there is anything you want to see in this series (or just in general!) let me know!
> 
> I don’t have a tumblr but join me over on Twitter @Hale1310 - I just set it up and I’m looking for some prompts to combine with these bingo prompts and for separate stories!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
